A Descent into Madness
The Beaten Swallow of Aphrodite
Smiles burn like unturned frowns
Looking down at my palms
The Palm trees whistles above in the wind
Like sirens burning out across still waters
It bothers me still being draped in this grief
Pictures move on walls and behoove me
Children click by like the reels of an old movie
The sky is clear and blue — crisp
Like the frozen blades of grass crunching beneath my feet
Time freezes for a moment today just long enough to laugh
At the color filling the world
Have you seen the frost littering the street?
Have you heard the bells ringing as families meet?
Perhaps I’m meant to wander
I wonder if they ponder that too
To escape this madness
Who can undrape me from this sadness?
Not me.
The past is happier it seems
Like the light that gleams back at me
And the decadence of my life and their lives beam out of me
People smile but do they mean it?
Is it all just acting in the face of dismay?
“Be an actor” she says
I am an actor, I’m here aren’t I?
But does it pay?
Certainly not in the warmth of my heart
That from the start is the currency I work for
It’s stricken down night after night
I feel like I’ve lost my way
Along the highway of life, looking for peace
I just want the promise of love to be fulfilled
To spend a season once more in the arms of a love yet to be killed
Yet to be fleeced by the parallax of time
Maybe I’m too skilled in the art of misery
I could be a miser if I had any sort of wealth
Perhaps I’m like Mr. Bailey,
But not even the ghost of an Angel has yet to visit me
Perhaps I’m the Scrooge but there’s no wealth of gold that surrounds me
Maybe one of the three Stooges best describes me
The Grinch?
When will my heart grow three times it’s size?
If not now then perhaps before I meet my demise.
Is my life to be lived in the tail end?
I don’t want everything for myself
Just something I can look at that makes me happy to keep a shelf
Hell is not a place but a time and place
It’s not warm there nor cold
It’s simply so empty it’s hard to bear
Hear not the sorrow of your heart for it
Beckons you to a better place beyond the rosary of stars
Like a pasquinade of baubles dangling from the heavens
Break the beaker of alchemy
For it is not the sorcery of the passion that binds you
But the passion of sorcery, the cursory effect of lost trust
The lackluster and ever diminishing
But never finishing caress of distress
Not less
Not more
Not enough
Not the best
Not the worst
Yet not the first
Just an illusion of what you could have
Always wavering like a tattered flag of a ship long sunk
And lost to time in the sublime
The sublimest word of all: duty
A thought
And idea
A dream
Woven from the pain of love lost
I gaze into the eyes of a lover I tried my best to give all I had
As tears wallow
It’s a hard love to swallow
Hollow is my heart
But full of a swallow that’s been beaten
It still sings and brings joy some times
We’ll see I suppose who toys with the fiddle next
Why is it that the cost of love is feeling love lost?
Such a dire price to pay the shire thrice
-J
